Graham Couch column: MAC's inadequacy as a basketball league can be traced to instability

Associated Press fileToledo fired Stan Joplin one year after his team finished 14-2 in MAC play. Toledo has won 14 games in the two-and-half seasons since.

KALAMAZOO — Writing about the beginning of the Mid-American Conference basketball season — the West Division especially — can make one feel like Bill Murray in the film “Groundhog Day.”

Another year, another group of inconsistent, unheralded and often undersized teams trying to find themselves somewhere miles south of the national radar.

At least Punxsutawney Phil gets some press in February.

Ironically, the MAC West’s best hope for change moving forward is fewer changes, at least the unnecessary ones that have set back its two most storied programs and caused a third to sputter back into oblivion.

The West Division’s recent woes have hurt the league as a whole and — beyond the loss of big-time talents over the last decade due the nationalization of recruiting through the summer AAU season — the problems can be traced to three bollixed decisions by simple-minded and greedy administrators: The firings of coach Stan Joplin at Toledo in 2008, Rob Judson at Northern Illinois in 2007 and Tim Buckley at Ball State in 2006.

“I’ve always found with coaches, if you measure the things they do good, they do way more things good than they do bad,” said Miami of Ohio coach Charlie Coles, who’s in his 15th season with the RedHawks and previously spent six at the helm of Central Michigan. “It just happens that we have some administrators who we all know, they run scared, except the ones I’ve had here at Miami, they run scared. Oh, God, can they run fast. They run fast, they hide, they run scared. So we have a tendency to change the coach rather than change all that’s around the coach and work with the coach.

“Stan Joplin should have never been fired. He was two years removed from being the coach of the year, winning the league. He should have never been fired, simple as that.”

Nor should have Buckley, whose worst sin was being unable to prevent a slew of injuries to his best players late in his six-year tenure. He still managed to win more than he lost.

Judson won Northern Illinois’ only division title — ever — in 2006, but a year later was fired because he hadn’t taken a program with zero history and crumbs for a fan base to the heights NIU’s administration thought it belonged.

“Toledo, with Northern, with Ball State, those are programs that had, had some success during the previous coaching staffs,” said Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins, who’s in his eighth season as head coach after spending three at WMU as an assistant. “They have a bad year, maybe two, maybe there’s a personality conflict in there, and you just say, ‘Time to make a change.’ It didn’t always work.”

Actually in the case of Toledo, Ball State and NIU, it never worked.

Associated Press fileRonny Thompson coached Ball State to a 9-22 record in is only winter in Muncie. He left with few friends.

Toledo and Ball State have already gotten rid of the disastrous replacements for Joplin and Buckley, Gene Cross and Ronny Thompson.

Judson’s replacement, Ricardo Patton, will almost certainly be let go at the end of this season, having failed to do what so many naive new MAC coaches have tried (with the blessing of incompetent athletic directors) — to recruit better athletes than everyone else and let them run.

The combined records of Cross, Thompson and Patton: 50-144. With Cross and Thompson resigning amid scandal.

Stan Joplin went 203-155 in 12 seasons at Toledo, his alma mater, put the Rockets in the NIT four times and won a MAC title in 2007. A year later, after going 11-19, that was it.

Bring on Cross, who produced 53 losses in his only two seasons.

“The shape of the program was a lot worse than I anticipated in every facet,” said Cross’ replacement, Tod Kowalcyzk, who left Wisconsin-Green Bay to take over the Rockets. “From academics, to basketball, to commitment of our players, to attitudes, etc., it certainly was a lot worse than I anticipated.”

Said Hawkins: “At the mid-major level, it’s been proven out over and over again, that the programs that have had success have had stability.”

Stability equals two things: Recruiting and player retention.

“I know the fans can get restless,” said Hawkins, who hasn’t led the Broncos to the postseason since 2005. “I completely get that. But there’s also an element of, be careful what you wish for.”

If athletic directors and presidents of mid-major schools need help figuring this out, glance around the country, or even the MAC.

The programs we all know and even the successful ones we don’t, almost all have stability — coaches that have either been there forever or for awhile or coaches that have been promoted from within.

Butler, Gonzaga, Old Dominion, Davidson, Utah State, San Diego State and, closer to home, Kent State, Miami of Ohio and Buffalo all fall into this category.

There are exceptions, but they rarely last.

Ball State has found its footing with third-year coach Billy Taylor. Kowalcyzk did a solid job at Green Bay.

But what happens when five years from now their star player turns an ankle or tears up a knee and wins become scarce for a winter?

If the answer doesn’t change, perhaps I or someone else will be writing this same flippin’ column again the following year.